The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-01-07
Scientific Miscellany.

A communication to the French
Academy of Sciences by Mons. q. v.
Zenger, has called attention to the sim,
ultaneous occurrence of brilliant auro.
ras and meteoric showers, suggesting q
probable connection.
During the season of 1886 the United
States fish commission has distributed
over 30. oo0, 900 young shad in the vari-
Gus streams and waters of the rountry,
at an expense of less than $4,000. As
less than 5000, 900 shad are taken for
tho market in O season, fifteen young
fish were put into the water for every
old one removed.
Dyspepsia, palpitation of the heart
and nervousness arc among the dis
| orders attributed to the use of strou 0
tea in excess, but the most remarkable
| effect seems to have been observed in
the case of q young girl reported by an
English medical authority to have had
attacks exactly resembling delirium
tremeus as result Of q habit of chew
ing tea leaves.
A new work by DIR. Louis Jobert
states that no purely left-handed race
has ever been discovered, although sew.
enty per cent. of the inhabitants of the
Pendjab use the left hand by preference,
as do also the larger part of the Hot.
tcntots and Bushmen of South Africa.
In study of criminals, DR.. Mario has
found that fourteen to twenty-five per
cent. of convicts were left-handed, the
highest ratio among people of all
classes being eHly nine in the hundred.
In recent address to the British Ge-
ologists' Association, Mr.. w. Topley
stated that the land-era of England is
probably>as great as 500 years ago; al,
though certain coasts have been much
worn by the waves. On the coast OF
Holderness and Norfolk the sea is gain
ing on the land at tho average rate OF
from two to three yards year, while
during exceptional gales the loss in
places has been many yards in q single
day. The eroded material is deposited
elsewhere, as in the estuaries OF the
Humber and the Wash. forming new
land quite equal in extent to that car
ried away.
Mahogany is being rapidly intro
duced into every part of India, where
it promises to thrive. The seeds sown
have terminated remarkably we'll, q
single pound planted in green house s
in the southern districts having yielded
between 8, 600 and 1000 plants. 1t is
thought TO be quite probable that the
world may some day look to India in
stead of to America for its mahogany,
as well as for its quinine. The eastern
product of the latter has alre ady be.
come so extensive and of such superior
quality that the cinchona bark exports
of the United States of Colombia are
said to have diminished fifty per cent
within five years.
BY means of a sensible thermopile
and a perforated disc of cardboard,
Prof. Storer, German physicist, has
proven that extraluminous patches on
the solar disc are more intensely heat
ed than the rest, and the dark spots
are cooler than the average surface.
The hottest regions must develop as
cending gas currents, to which descent
of cooler gas masses must necessarily
correspond. These descending gases
must generate the dark spots, and the
ascending produce the prominences
which are observed to shoot up to
enormous heights. This theory is con-
firmed by the fact that sun-spots always
form on extra bright parts of the sun.